Demystifying emotion for designers

Abstract

This paper introduces a five-day intensive course, conducted over five years from 2018 to 2022, aimed at teaching emotion-driven design (EDD) to graduate students with diverse disciplinary backgrounds at Beijing Normal University. EDD is the practice of designing products or services that are informed by user or consumer emotions and/or aim to elicit predetermined emotions. The course was designed to teach students about human emotions from a scientific perspective and to provide hands-on experience in creative processes. To structure the course, seven principles derived from emotion-related design knowledge were employed, which guided the development of learning activities and course materials. The paper also includes student evaluations and reflections on the strengths and weaknesses of the course design. It intends to serve as a resource for design educators who wish to teach the practical application of emotion psychology to students with limited prior expertise.